March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia’s Lion Group founder
Rusdi Kirana may step down this year as chief executive officer
to focus on his political career in hope of becoming the
agriculture minister of the world’s fourth-most populous nation.

Kirana, who helped start budget carrier PT Lion Mentari
Airlines 15 years ago, will tap on his business skills to help
farmers from financing to managing their crops if given a seat
in the country’s next cabinet after the July elections, he said.
He will leave the company with a goal to become Asia’s biggest
low-cost airline in two years after expanding its fleet, he
said.

If airline operators are able to half the costs over the
past decade, “why can’t we do the same with agriculture?”
Kirana said in an interview in Jakarta. “I can help a lot of
people.”

The expansion of Lion Air in the past decade to become the
country’s largest carrier highlights the greater demand from
Indonesia’s emerging middle class for everything from flights to
more imported wheat for donuts. Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s
biggest economy, is trying to be self-sufficient in production
of its staple food rice.

A January poll by the Indonesian Survey Circle put Jakarta
Governor Joko Widodo as most likely to win the presidency, even
though he hasn’t announced plans to run. The Golkar party’s
candidate Aburizal Bakrie, who rates himself the favorite, wants
to focus on rural development and improving infrastructure,
while ex-general Prabowo Subianto of the Gerindra party wants to
open up new land for food production.

Loan Sharks

The former travel agent would like to apply his experience
in business negotiations including financing for an orderbook of
about 700 planes, Kirana said. A major challenge in the
country’s agriculture industry is the ability for farmers to get
bank loans, putting them at risk when harvests or commodity
prices drop.

“They borrow 100 percent from loan sharks,” he said.

By the end of this year, Lion Air and state-controlled PT
Garuda Indonesia will surpass Singapore Airlines Ltd. as
Southeast Asia’s biggest carriers by fleet size, the CAPA Centre
for Aviation, which advises airlines, said last year. Boeing Co.
and Airbus SAS, the world’s two biggest planemakers, both count
on Asian airlines to buy more aircraft in the next two decades.

“He has been planning this for a number of years,” Shukor
Yusof, Singapore-based analyst at Standard & Poor’s, said by
phone today. “Clearly he has done all the preparation for this
moment. But running one country’s agricultural sector is totally
different from running an airline, so we have to see how he can
do that.”

AirAsia Competition

Lion Group plans to order a few dozen more planes soon,
said Kirana, without specifying the type, and plans to have a
fleet of 1,000 planes. Lion Air agreed to buy 230 Boeing 737
planes in 2012 and followed that with an order for 234 Airbus
planes last year. The group will open an Australian airline in
the next 12 months, called Aussie Batik, Kirana said.

“We can be friends but we also have to compete,” Kirana
said. “Tony always thinks that he is the biggest low-cost
airline, so I want to tell him that he will not be. He has
deferred his orders while we are ramping up.”

Back Seat

After taking 150 planes in 13 years for Malaysia, Thailand
and Indonesia, with 350 more in the backlog, Fernandes said last
month he’s ready to take a “back seat,” deferring seven
deliveries this year and 12 in 2015 to help adapt as rivals
flood the market. Still, he disagrees that will give Lion Air
the edge.

“We must be doing something right as all low-cost carriers
will always mention being bigger, better than AirAsia,” he said
in an e-mailed response to Bloomberg News. “Our strategy
remains clear and undeterred by others.”

Kirana doesn’t think there will be overcapacity in the
region’s planes given Asia’s economic growth, and wants his
successor to focus on having lower costs than competitors.

Rudy Lumingkewas, Jakarta-based Lion Air’s general manager
of sales and marketing, has taken over as its new CEO, Lion
Group said on March 5. Kirana said he is training his 22-year-old nephew to replace Rudy within a decade, without giving his
name.

“There are no new challenges for me in the airline
industry,” Kirana said in an interview with Bloomberg TV
Indonesia. “I thought I’d be better off entering politics and
trying to improve the livelihood of more people and leave a good
legacy.”